Why did the movie end like that. Maybe I am stupid or just lacking in the coomon sense area of the brain, but why the hell did it end like that?! His face got cut and he smiles at it?! What was the point of the last scene?! Why did they choose to ruin a perfectly good movie with an ending like that?! Was it to just up the rating from PG-13 to R? I mean... Seriously what was going on? What am I missing?!
shareAxel comes from a very well-to-do family. His grandfather is very wealthy. His mother is a doctor. Everything has come easy to him -- hot girlfriend, expensive sports car. He has never had to really struggle for anything. However, if he blows all his money gambling, and has to deal with vicious loan sharks, he is truly testing (and defining) himself, without any assistance from his familly. It is like when the son of a King wants to join the Crusades, to prove himself or die trying.
Axel craves disaster, because everytime he gets into deep trouble, someone bails him out -- when he racks up 40K in gambling debts, his mom loans him the money (which he then wagers on a basketball game). Paul Sorvino's character keeps giving Axel second and third chances, mainly because Axel's grandfather is so well-connected. Finally, Axel can no longer depend on his family or Sorvino's kindness -- but there is one last escape hatch. If Axel can convince one of his students to shave points in a basketball game, all will be forgiven. Axel convinces the player to do this, and Axel's gambling debt is erased. You'd think Axel would have learned his lesson. But no. He decides to walk down a dangerous street in Harlem, hook up with a prostitute, then insult a knife-wielding pimp. Why does he do this? This is unrelated to gambling. What Axel really wants to do is lose, and lose big. Like all addicts who loathe themselves, Axel wants to hit bottom, and the only way he knows how is to deliberately put himself into a terrible situation. And he does. That's why he's smiling as he looks at himself in the mirror -- he's achieved his unconscious desire to destroy himself.
I have a theory that Axel is an aspiring novelist who wants to explore the gambling life to the utmost. He seems to be taking in the details of this sordid life -- like when he accompanies Carmine on a collection run, and he takes Carmine's pulse after Carmine has beat the crap out of a guy who owes money. Axel creates drama in his life simply so he can write about it.
Nice work, fluffer. In the mirror, Axel sees the real "juice." He sees his blood. The true Gambler puts his very life on the line -- not just his money.
shareOutstanding!
The only person to ever celebrate Valentines Day correctly was Al Capone!
Its all to do with self destruction. Thats what the entire film is all about.
'Our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives.....'
Tyler Durden
Wow! Damn good analysis here! A very powerful underrated gem from the 70's. I love the music score and the way it's used, such as Axel's blackjack triumph in Vegas. And what has to be one of the most disturbing screen injuries ever!
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Axel is smiling because he is finally satisfied. He got what he wanted, which was to hit bottom and destroy himself.
shareAt first I thought the movie ended abruptly as well, but as I watched the movie again in bits and pieces the last scene just made sense to me-no need to draw it out any further as he did reach absolute bottom-you could see how disgusted he was to involve his student into his risk-filled life. He explains as much to Hips before moving on to the final scene with the hooker.
Master card player? Resort casino owner?? or SS car enthusiast??? Make your best guess.
According to Freud the gambler is seeking self-destruction (the death instinct) so after failing to destroy himself gambling he seeks a little more direct pain.
Its also linked to the self pitying egotism of the main character is Dostoevsky's Notes from the underground which is quoted in the film. "If I say 2 + 2 is a 5, then its a 5"; why care if I ruin other poeple lines in the process. The scene with the prostitute ties in with the scene in Notes form the underground who the main character "saves" from prostitution, only to treat her terribly.
Freuds theory is non-sense. If pathological gamblers really were seeking self punishment then why do they enjoy winning so much. Personally I'm more in the cognitive behavior camp regarding pathological gambling.
But the film pulls it off in a way that is satisfying.
If he feels the need to proove himself because he's had everything handed to him, why not just aim to get promoted at work, and move up the literary ladder until he's teaching at the best institute and has written a few books.
shareBecause that's too soft and too slow. There's a great American tradition, from Teddy Roosevelt to Ernest Hemingway to Norman Mailer, of testing oneself in a dangerous setting. War is the most likely arena for such a trial, but when there's no war, macho American intellectuals find other testing grounds. I presume that Axel has literary ambitions, and might enjoy scaling the ladder of academia, but he is young with a surplus of energy and wants to put his life on the line and escape the confines of the Ivory Tower. We see this sort of envelope pushing behavior in Norman Mailer, and Axel has this character trait.
shareI haven't seen this movie in many years, but found it very intriguing. I agree with fluffer. The pimp turned out not to be particularly interested in violence, but Axel forced it on him. The final scene was a graphic depiction of his compulsion to lose. I thought it was the perfect ending and no further development was necessary. This would be the nature of the rest of his life, which probably wouldn't last very long.
"By God, I heard the crow call my name!" exclaimed Caw.
Fluffer and myself talked about this a little while ago and we both agreed that Axel gambled because he just enjoyed the thrill of being in danger. Axel has a serious pyschological problem; if there's no danger in his life, there's no excitement.
He liked to gamble with his life hence which is why he chose to gamble in a mob Casino, knowing full well that he could easily fall in debt and be on the verge of losing his life to a bunch of loan sharks. And then the challenge is to see if he'll be able to survive the predicament. And of course, if he gets out of the predicament too easily (like the scene where his mother hands him the payoff money like she was giving away candy), it means the predicament wasn't challenging enough and so he'll look for another means of getting into more danger with a much harder means of survival.
It's like a video game to him, the more challenging the situation, the more excitement. He smiles at the end because he's satisfied with the challenge he had to go through to survive. To him, the bloody cut on his face means the task of survival wasn't a piece of cake and thats the way it should be, formidable.
One more fact to the OP:
There was no PG-13 in those days. There wasn't generally as much cynicism in Hollywood when it came to making a film rating-applicable in the '70's - this was an extraordinarily creative decade in film and many studios took big risks on "anti-hero" projects. Quentin Tarantino was correct to call this era Hollywood's Silver Age (from "Bonnie & Clyde" to "Heaven's Gate", 67-80).
"There is no inner peace. There is only nervousness and death." - Fran Lebowitz